Joined by a group of enthusiastic K-12 teachers and principals, we explored a number of apps at our District Pro-D session on February 21st. The feature story was Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin. After listening to the story and the oh-so catchy song, we used a strategy called Milling…
Tag: integration
App #10 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #10: Partner a beautiful image that you’ve drawn or photographed with interactivity and you’ve got Thinglink. These rich interactives provide another way to curate and organize information. I’ve written about this before using the SAMR Model as an example (developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura, Ph.D) and also here where I was participating in CLMOOC. Thinglink offers interaction tools that tag photos or images…
App #9 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #9: In our effort to highlight the SAMR Model of integration of technology, we’ve been considering what activities might fit into Redefinition (technology that allows creation of new tasks, previously inconceivable). What activities might have significant impact to student outcomes? The “tell your story” concept remains one of the powerful ways we have to teach others, to increase audience,…
App #5 of “10 Apps to Countdown Season”
App #5: Many of us have our students write stories and then illustrate the text. While the artists in the bunch do flips and cartwheels (and I’ve had those students), what happens to those who struggle with drawing the simplest shapes. You know what I mean… somehow my tree just doesn’t quite look like a…
Using Technologies With A Purpose
The SAMR Model [developed by Ruben Puentedura] offers a framework for viewing how we integrate technologies into our curricula. Broken into four sections [Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition], it is a simple way to group activities that provide a variety of purposes. The goal is to move towards teaching ‘above the line’. You can hover over different parts of…
Reading The Impossible
Many of you have asked me if there is support for those who struggle with reading digital content especially when it is written above instructional reading levels. Every time a class attempts research out on the web, students are faced with information they cannot comfortably read. For the brain to have enough neuronal resources to…
September Newsletter Off The Presses
September is filled with a mix of “welcome back activities” as well as planning for possibilities. Our September Newsletter is hot off the presses. Click here for your copy. You can also click on the News tab in the navigation bar for an archive of all the newsletters.
A Year of Discovery
It’s June and I’m really not sure what happened to this year. The ten months prior have whizzed by and here we are again. I wanted to take this moment to share some reflections of the year and try to put things into perspective. Our Writers Workshop folks grappled with ideas related not only…
Hot Off the Presses – January News
It’s blustery and nippy outside. What better time than to dig into our latest newsletter of the year! Filled with hot items, as well as keep you up-to-date with the latest workshops and learning sessions. And who can resist those little tips and tricks that make teaching life both easier and interesting. CLICK HERE…
App Support in Reading
Apps come and apps go. All of them serve a purpose. It is the teacher who makes “magic” happen through the lesson experiences. Our iDevices Blog is where you will see an ongoing vetted list of apps. (Click Apps Collection list) Please add to the list if you run across an app that you love. Here’s one you may…
Adding Alternative Modes to Blogs – Connecting to Audience
Sometimes writing just text won’t do and you want to add some spice to get your point across. Or you’re thinking of how you might communicate more clearly to your audience. Like oral conversations, a variety of examples may be helpful to clarify thinking. One simple way is to use video and embed content…
The Writing Workshop Series – (Session #1)
Here we go – another exciting ride through the intricacies of Writers Workshop. And you knew this was coming – with a twist. As we navigate the environment of web2, we come to understand just how complex the writing process has become. I like to think of this as opportunities to offer more “choice…
Sharing Books…Modeling Strategies…
Sometimes locating just the right book to share or use as a piece of mentor text appears impossible to find. Or have you ever wanted to expand opportunities for your students to read at home? We now have access to TumbleBooks and TumbleBookCloud. [See links under District Links.] These online resources provide a fabulous array of e-texts…
Research and the Power of Google Docs
If you dropped by recently, you’ll notice that we’ve been using Google Docs (Google Apps for Education) to enhance the writing process. (For more, select the category – Literacy – Writing Process.) And we’ve had amazing results. Now Google Docs has “upped the bar” and added an integrated research feature. HOW IT WORKS In Docs, let’s say you wrote your beginning…
Celebrating Writers and Learners
Our final learning session of Writers Workshop using Google Docs turned out better than I could have ever imagined. We have such a wonderful group of imaginative and fearless educators! Here’s how the session unfolded. We started with a video from Ted that I discovered on spoken word poetry by Sarah Kay. This spoke to me about how important it is to offer…
Writers Workshop – Each Step in the Process
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” I was reminded of this quote as we worked through our recent session on ‘Writers Workshop‘. Not only the global concepts of ‘writers workshop’ (lots of time to write and explore, choice and voice, conferring during and not after the fact…) but what this…
TED Expands to Education
My fascination with TED just increased with the launch of its newest initiative dedicated to Education. It is called TED-Ed: Lessons Worth Sharing. TED was originally created to bring together great minds and grand ideas aimed at changing attitudes and ultimately the world. The website and conferences plays host to inspired thinkers and those who would engage with such…
Choice Words
Things happen when you’ve return from a conference. New ideas attach with old ones and a host of “how does this all connect” is sifted through a lens of “what if…”. At FETC, keynote speaker Michael Wesch (watch TED talk) talked about the fast rise of the new technologies (Youtube 2005; Twitter 2006) resulting in a new culture…
Kurzweil 3000 – Session 3 Writing on the Calendar
This third session of Kurzweil 3000, which deals with writing supports has been rescheduled on the Staff Development Calendar to Wednesday February 23 (3:30-5:30) at Schou – TLC. Questions such as “How can Kurzweil support students who find written output challenging? What about the writers workshop process of braining, organizing, and drafting?” For more…
Digital Writing – Digital Teaching – Session 1
Digital Writing is… Session One (February 9, 2011): “If we engage students in real writing tasks and we use technology in such a way that it complements their innate need to find purposes and audiences for their work, we can have them engaged in a digital writing process that focuses first on the writer, then…